Throughout my career, I have run across so many pages that subscribe to the idea that more is more. When a social network increases their character limits, they cheer because they will absolutely use every character of that character limit. And longer videos? They’re on that as well. None of these pages understand the power of less.
Look, I’ve had moments of wanting more and having it work to my advantage. But ninety percent of the time, less has been way more effective and powerful. Why? Let’s talk about how you can use the power of less.
Scannable
When you are on social media, how often do you actual read something? It’s rare. You have to be fully invested and that’s just too much commitment for the average social media user. Instead, they scan until they find something they want to commit to.
The average social media user will come to a big block of text, and immediately, their brain will say, “No, thank you.” And then they will move onto the next post that is more scannable. And that more scannable content? Yes, it will be less taxing on their brain because there will be fewer words.
The same will happen with video. If you see a video is less than a minute, you’re more likely to check it out. If you see it’s fifteen minutes, you’re immediately onto the next post. Fifteen is a whole lot of minutes and a whole lot of commitment. No one is up for that.
Retaining the message
If you want your audience to actually understand what you are trying to tell them, you need to give them smaller bits of content to consume. Giving them everything all at once will only make it more difficult for them to understand and even harder to retain. So if you’re looking to have a long lasting message, it’s better to build it in bits. And they’ll likely understand it better that way as well.
What does that look like? Think of it like a conference. If you did a post listing every single person who is going to be presenting, no one will remember anyone who is presenting. And you will have a whole lot of people who will miss out on an event they probably really would have liked. But if you take the time to highlight each presenter instead, they are less likely to miss someone they’d like to see and more likely to remember that presenter will be there.
The same can happen for any message. Break it down into parts. Then build on each part as you share it with your audience. They will remember so much more of what you are trying to tell them.
No “See More” buttons
On just about every social media network, there comes a point where the caption is so long that your audience will have to click on “See More” to be able to read the whole caption. That is once again a whole lot of commitment to ask of your audience. They have to be so invested in those first few sentences that they will click to read even more of what you have to say. And once again, very few members of your audience are going to be that committed.
What does all of this mean for you? All of those words that you obsessed over are just not being read. So you’ve put a ton of work into something that isn’t being read. That isn’t exactly the most efficient use of your time. So just go with less. It will get read without having to rely on someone clicking a “See More” button.
SEO-friendly
There are many aspects that go into SEO. One of those aspects that search engines look for is how many links a site receives from social media. The idea behind that is that if a site is consistently being shared, then a search engine considers it a higher value site. So if you want to get your site to be considered higher value, you have to start by sharing your own site to social media.
And how do you do that? Give a short teaser that will get people to want to read more. And then you give them that more on your website. Yes, you start with less that gets your fans wanting more.
This can be done for events, breaking news, blog posts, etc. The key is to make sure that you are linking to something your fans really want to know more about. Otherwise, you’re just linking for SEO and that should be just part of the plan on social media, not the whole plan. If it’s the whole plan, you are pushing content at your audience. That will never end well for your marketing.
Engaging
Have you ever just asked your audience a question? Nothing else. Just a question. Usually, if it’s a good question, they will reply with answers. But if you add a lot of information to the question and it becomes more than just a question, your audience becomes less likely to answer. Sometimes it’s worth it to add a bit more information to get the right kinds of answers, but most times it’s not. A simple question is more than enough on its own.
And you can use questions to get certain stories out of your audience, quotes and more. This user-generated content that you have initiated is then available for promoting products and events. Or you can just use it as a way to bring more awareness to what you do. Less can lead to a whole lot more content.
Bring less to your social media
For me, the idea of less has been the most effective tool for my clients. But you don’t have to believe me on this. Try it out. See how your audience reacts to it. You might have something unexpected happen. And unexpected is usually where the magic happens on social media.
How are you bringing the idea of less to your audience?